THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume)
dinner will be over if I don't hurry. Perhaps it's too late already, and I'm so hungry!"
I bounced to the door, and threw it wide open, to find Mr. John Dane standing in the passage, holding a small tray crowded with dishes.
"Here you are," he said, in the most matter-of-fact way, as if bringing meals to my door had been a fixed habit with him, man and boy, for years. "Hope I haven't spilt anything! There's such a crush in our feeding place that I thought you'd be safer up here. So I made friends with a dear old waiter chap, and said I wanted something nice for my sister."
"You didn't!" I exclaimed.
"I did. Do you mind much? I understood it was agreed that was our relationship."
"No, I don't mind much," I returned. "Thank you for everything." I shook back a cloud of hair, and glanced up at the chauffeur. Our eyes met, and as I took the tray my fingers touched his. His dark face grew faintly red, and then a slight frown drew his eyebrows together.
"Why do you suddenly look like that?" I asked. "Have I done anything to make you cross?"
"Only with myself," he said.
"But why? Are you sorry you've been kind to me? Oh, if you only knew, I need it to-night. Go on being kind."
"You're not the sort of girl a man can be kind to," he said, almost gruffly, it seemed to me.
"Am I ungrateful, then?"
"I don't know what you are," he answered. "I only know that if I looked at you long as you are now I should make an ass of myself—and make you detest or despise me. So good night—and good appetite."
He turned to go, but I called him back. "Please!" I begged. "I'll only keep you one minute. I'm sure you're joking, big brother, about being an ass, or poking fun at me. But I don't care. I need some advice so badly! I've no one but you to give it to me. I know you won't desert me, because if you were like that you wouldn't have come to stop at this hotel to watch over your new sister—which I'm sure you did, though that may sound ever so conceited."
"Of course I won't desert you," he said. "I couldn't—now, even if I would. But I'll go away till you've had your dinner, and—and made yourself look less like a siren and more like an ordinary human being—if possible. Then I'll run up and knock, and you can come out in the passage to be advised."
"A siren—with a towel round her neck!" I laughed. "If I should sing to you, perhaps you might say—"
"Don't, for heaven's sake, or there would be an end of—your brother," he broke in, laughing a little. "It wouldn't need much more." And with that he was off.
He is very abrupt in his manner at times, certainly, this strange chauffeur, and yet one's feelings aren't exactly hurt. And one feels, somehow, as I think the motor seems to feel, as if one could trust to his guidance in the most dangerous places. I'm sure he would give his life to save the car, and I believe he would take a good deal of trouble to save me; indeed, he has already taken a good deal of trouble, in several ways.
When he had gone I set down the tray, shut the door, and went to see how I really did look with my hair hanging round my shoulders. My ideas on the subject of sirenhood are vague; but I must confess, if the creatures are like me with my hair down, they must be quite nice, harmless little persons. I admire my hair, there's so much of it; and at the ends, a good long way below my waist, there's such a thoroughly agreeable curl, like a yellow sea-wave just about to break. Of course, that sounds very vain; but why shouldn't one admire one's own things, if one has things worth admiring? It seems rather ungrateful to Providence to cry them down; and ingratitude was never a favourite vice with me.
One would have said that the chauffeur knew by instinct what I liked best to eat, and he must have had a very persuasive way with the waiter. There was crême d'orge, in a big cup; there were sweetbreads, and there was lemon meringue. Nothing ever tasted better since my "birthday feasts" as a child, when I was allowed to order my own dinner.
My room being on the first floor, though separated by a labyrinth of quaint passages from Lady Turnour's, there was danger in a corridor conversation with Mr. Dane at an hour when people might be coming upstairs after dinner; but he was in such a hurry to escape from me that I had no time to explain; and I really had not the heart to make myself hideous, by way of disguise, as I'd planned before his knock at the door. As an alternative I put on a hat, pinning quite a thick veil over my face, and when the expected tap came again, I was prepared for it.
"Are you going out?" my brother asked, looking surprised, when I flitted into the dim corridor, with Lady Turnour's blue bag dutifully slipped on my arm.
"No," I answered. "I'm hiding. I know that sounds mysterious, or melodramatic, or something silly, but it's only disagreeable. And it's what I want to ask your advice about." Then, shamefacedly when it came to the point, I unfolded the tale of Monsieur Charretier.
"By Jove, and he's in this house!" exclaimed the chauffeur, genuinely interested, and not a bit sulky. "You haven't an idea whether he's been actually tracking you?"
"If he has, he must have employed detectives, and clever ones, too," I said, defending my own strategy.
"Is he the sort of man who would do such a thing—put detectives on a girl who's run away from home to get rid of his attentions?"
"I don't know. I only know he has no idea of being a gentleman. What can you expect of Corn Plasters?"
"Don't throw his corn plasters in his face. He might be a good fellow in spite of them."
"Well, he isn't—or with them, either. He may be acting with my cousin's husband, who values him immensely, and wants him in the family."
"Is he very rich?"
"Disgustingly," said I, as I had said to Lady Kilmarny.
"Yet you bolted from a good home, where you had every comfort, rather than be pestered to marry him?"
"Oh, what do you call a 'good home,' and 'every comfort'? I had enough to eat and drink, a sunny room, decent clothes, and wasn't allowed to work except for Cousin Catherine. But that isn't my idea of goodness and comfort."
"Nor mine either."
"Yet you seem surprised at me."
"I was thinking that, little and fragile as you look—like a delicate piece of Dresden china—you're a brave girl."
"Oh, thank you!" I cried. "I do love to be called 'brave' better than anything, because I'm really such a coward. You don't think I've done wrong?"
"No-o. So far as you've told me."
"What, don't you believe I've told you the truth?" I flashed out.
"Of course. But do women ever tell the whole truth to men—even to their brothers? What about that kind friend of yours in England?"
"What kind friend?" I asked, confused for an instant. Then I remembered, and—almost—chuckled. The conversation I had had with him came back to me, and I recalled a queer look on his face which had puzzled me till I forgot it. Now I was on the point of blurting out: "Oh, the kind friend is a Miss Paget, who said she'd like to help me if I needed help," when a spirit of mischief seized me. I determined to keep up the little mystery I'd inadvertently made. "I know," I said gravely. "Quite a different kind of friend."
"Some one you like better than Monsieur Charretier?"
"Much better."
"Rich, too?"
"Very rich, I believe, and of a noble family."
"Indeed! No doubt, then, you are wise, even from a worldly point of view, in refusing the man your people want you to marry, and taking—such extreme measures not to let yourself be over persuaded," said Mr. Dane, stiffly, in a changed tone, not at all friendly or nice, as before. "I meant to advise you not to go on to England with Lady Turnour, as the whole situation is so unsuitable; but now, of course, I shall say no more."
"It